There is another very simple torture, used by many native american tribes and by banitos. the victim is taken out into a relatively clear patch of land, stripped down and staked to the ground. their wrists and ankles were tied to those stakes by wet leather. also, another strip of wet leather was tied around their throat. as the day waned on, the leather dried and shrank, strecthing the victim do death or deathe by asphyxiation, whichever happened first.......

This has reminded me of an actual execution technique from Asia: the prisoner is bound to lie down on earth, on a cleared bamboo field... if you have plants that can grow a few centimeters a day through anything, you do not need to worry about the prisoner or the funeral.

That may be exactly the point - and the horror factor of your skin being peeled off. Don't forget that the skin won't heal after a few layers are damaged... and the potential for further damage later on.

Torture is not always about pain, which the devious posters to this thread seem to know very well... Go to Comment

The victim is tied strongly enough, so it cannot move (the right equipment should be in any decent torture chamber), then drugged with a decent pain-killer - to feel no pain but stay conscious. Then, at a chosen location, usually a limb, or the abdomen later on, is covered by a piece of cloth which is put on fire.

The key is to maintain a slow-burning fire, that will cause the bodily fat to liquify and soak into the cloth. (This is also one reported cause for spontaneous combustion, given time it can burn the whole body from inside!)

Further medicine may be necessary to keep the unfortunate dieing of shock. Then, let the victim watch itself being slowly burned alive, until the sought information is revealed.

The saq mai (F'lorine, meaning "head drop") is a quite simple but diabolically ingenious tool of torturers. The main component is a simple rack, on which the victim is locked, stretched out, unable to move, but not stretched. The victim's head is covered in a harness of sorts; on the backside of this harness (against the victim's head) are sharp (though not deadly sharp) pins. The front of the mask (which sports no pins) is connected to a chain- this chain runs through a metal loop above the table, and on the other side of the chain there is a huge, spiked weight.
Therefore, summarizing the function of the saq mai, the victim remains in a constant state of paralyzing neck pain and fear; if the victim moves his head down into a more comfortable position, the pins of the head-harness with stab into his skin (they already cause considerable discomfort); if the victim moves his head forward off the pins in an effort to lessen the pain of these pins, the spiked weight will lower into his innards. Go to Comment

During the American wars in the Phillipines (yes, we had wars in the Phillipines, you just never hear about them, because that's one of those things that THEY don't want you to know about), we created what I consider the most frightening torture technique ever to torture Fillipino freedom fighters.
What we would do is strap the individual down on a table with his shirt off. We would then take two or three large rats and place them on the chest of the individual. Next came a large metal bowl, which we use to trap the rats on the person's chest, where they begin to become frantic (reference "trapped like rats"). Then, diabolically, we heat up the bowl, so that the rats would go crazy with fear and essentially *eat* their way out *through* the victim's chest.

Burning Pain of the SoulThis technique can only be used in worlds were there is no seperation between clerical and wizard magics, where magic can be used to heal.

The technique is simple. The mage puts a pain block in the target's abdomin. An incision is made and warm to pure charcol hot to warm coals are put in (important as they burn clean and don't need too much 02). The wound is then healed over. The pain block is removed and reapplied as needed to "motivate" the target. If the target "spills their guts", the coals can be removed by a quick incision and some more healing. Go to Comment

This lovely location can be used for more than mere executions of nobility. The ringing of the bells, if not fully rhythmic, can still do serious kinetic damage to the target, as well as deafen them, and can send the target towards madness, but not kill them. So "short doses" of the bell can be used to "loosen" the tongue of most people, who after the second or third time under will do just about anything to avoid it.

This is not a fantasy torture. Execution by bell was practiced in three Asian countries in centuries past. Go to Comment

The Tucker Telephone is a torture device of the early 20th century. It used parts from a (now old-fashioned crank) telephone. The electric generator of the telephone is wired in sequence to two batteries so that the instrument can be used to administer electric shocks to another person. The Tucker Telephone was invented by a trustee who acted as the "resident physician" at the Tucker State Prison Farm, Arkansas, in the 1960s.

At the "Tucker Hospital", an inmate was strapped down and electrodes placed on toes and genitals.. When the crank was turned, a charge was shot through the body. Continuing with the telehone euphemisms, 'long-distance calls' referred to several such charges, just before the point of losing consciousness. This was imperfect, however, and other consequences included permanent organ damage and insanity. Its use is substantiated until 1968.

The Tucker Telephone is also sometimes referred to as Radio Moscow, as the same device was used by the Russians in the early to middle 20th Century. There are scattered reports from American Vietnam war veterans that field phones were occasionally converted into Tucker telephones which were used by platoon commanders to torture Viet Cong prisoners. Go to Comment

The Stocks
A Medieval torture classic, as well as a means of punishment.

The victim would place his or her hands and feet in the open device later to be closed. Depending on the crime, a person could be sentenced to many days, or even weeks of staying confined by the stocks.

Even though in movies they portrait the stocks harmless, the reality was quite different. Victims suffered and sometimes those who wanted to save the victim were also tortured by this method.

Generally placed near a town or other settlement, the victim was subject to the public's harm. In most cases, it was limited to public scorn, feces, and rotten fruit thrown in them. However, if public sentiment was against them, the injuries could be more grevious. Punching/ hitting the victim was popular. However, more popular was the more biblical Stoning. This could be a nuicense to actual deep injury. Supposedly, cutting was very common, with a few rare cases of cuting off parts of the victim (such as a hand) to later be burned; stopping him from dying.

Sometimes, death penalty was sentenced by this device. The victim was to be left confined to the stocks somewhere while the public, sun, and animals did their job to kill him. Go to Comment

Simply, Blazing salt is a blend of carefully prepared hot pepper and salt. The peppers are cut just so, as to discard as much of the non-capsaicin containing material as possible, leaving behind only the veins that contain the pungent chemicals. Dried, and then ground into the salt, this mixture is applied to open wounds to create agonizing pain. Further, this mixture cannot be easily removed with water, as capsaicin is generally insoluble in water. Go to Comment